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WM/Combat House Rules
Improved Evaluate The Evaluate maneuver give a bonus of +2 per round, not +1. Evaluate can give up to a +6 bonus, but does not stack with Telegraphic Attack. Better Leadership At the start of each session, one PC (the leader) can use Tactics to make plans, at a bonus equal to the number of party members who know the skill (or Soldier) and a penalty equal to party size. Success earns a reroll, plus additional rerolls equal to the margin of success. Rerolls can be used in combat situations by any party member, if the leader passes a Leadership roll. If the leader is unconscious, dead or otherwise disabled, other PCs may attempt the Leadership roll at -2, but only 1 roll can be made per reroll attempt. Failing the skill check wastes the reroll opportunity. The leader does not have to have the highest Tactics in the party, but only one PC can attempt the Tactics roll. Fighting Withdrawals and Panicked Retreats Delvers who get in over their head have two options for disengaging: # A fighting withdrawal is played out in tactical combat. The delvers have to run away from their foes and successfully escape. Any unconscious delvers must be recovered or abandoned. There is no penalty beyond embarrassment (and possibly loss of gear dropped so delvers can run faster) for engaging in a fighting withdrawal, and extra character points can be earned for dramatically rescuing downed comrades. If the delvers recover and return to defeat their foes, they get the normal CP award for the encounter. # A panicked retreat is not played out in tactical combat, but is an act of fiat. If all living delvers declare they'll retreat the combat, they are all immediately allowed to flee, along with any unconscious delvers. No CP is earned for the encounter, and 1 CP is lost from the CP award at the end of the delve. If the delvers later defeat their foes, they still receive no CP for it. Combat and Vision Penalties for Lighting Ignore the rules on basic p. 394 when dealing with lighting penalties, though they apply normally to obscured, concealed, or invisible characters. Vision penalties for lighting are applied directly to all vision related Perception rolls and to all DX based rolls where vision is important. This includes combat, especially defense rolls. As usual, the applied penalty to Block and Parry is half the Vision penalty, and the applied Dodge penalty is one-quarter the Vision penalty. Fractions are rounded down. Armed Interdiction Anyone may attempt the Armed Interdiction technique. No one may purchase it up from their default. Damage is reduced to -4 from normal, or -2 per die, whichever is worse. If attempting an Armed Interdiction would cause a weapon to break, the wielder drops it instead. Flexible weapons such as kusaris and whips do not take a penalty to perform an Armed Interdiction, and are actually at +1 on rolls to attempt to do so. Armor and Cutting Weapons Cutting weapons have a harder time penetrating armor than piercing or impaling weapons. If a cutting attack fails to do more than twice the damage resistance of the armor, it fails to penetrate and is treated as a crushing attack. This rule only applies to armor (including magical spells), and not to damage resistance provided by Tough Skin or Fur. :Example: Connell is wearing standard mail with Fortify +1 when Singeon swings his saber at him. Singeon hits and does 9 cutting damage. Connell has DR 5, so 5 points are absorbed and the remaining 4 points are treated as crushing damage, causing Connell to lose 4 hits. If Singeon had done 11 damage, 5 points would have been absorbed and the remaining 6 would have been treated as cutting damage with the +50% modifier, causing Connell to lose 9 hits. Weaker Heroic Archers Heroic Archers cannot fast-load on the same turn that they Move and Attack. They may Fast-Load during a Move maneuver with no penalty. They may also Fast-Load and attack by taking a Step and Attack or All-Out attack maneuver. If their arrow is already knocked, they may Move and Attack with the normal -2 penalty for taking a Move and Attack maneuver with a Bulk 0 ranged weapon. Melee Move and Attack A character who makes a Move and Attack cannot make an Active Defense with whatever limbs he attacked with. Normally, that means no Parries with a weapon. In the case of a Shield Rush, that means no Blocks with that shield. Shield DB still protects normally. Fright Checks Table lookups are a bad idea. Stunning PCs for multiple turns is unfun. The Fright Check Table has to go. Failing a Fright Check gives a penalty to IQ (including Perception and Will but not Fear), DX, and all skills based on them equal to 1/2 the sum of the margin of failure and the situation's penalty to Fright Checks. Defenses are not penalized unless a creature caused the Fright Check in which case 1/2 the penalty is applied to Active Defenses against its attacks. On a critical failure, the character is stunned and must reroll the original Fright Check after each turn of Doing Nothing to recover from the stun. Even when the character recovers from the stun, they still have the normal penalty to IQ, DX, and defenses from the critical failure against the Fright Check. :Example 1: The delving band are assaulted by a corrupted Giant Eagle whose shriek forces them to roll unmodified Fright Checks. Lenia succeeds and has no penalty. Connell and Mrugnak both fail by 2, and suffer -1 to IQ, Per, Will, DX, and all related skills. Mordreona fails by 4, and suffers a -2 penalty to the same rolls; she'll also suffer -1 to defenses against the eagle if it chooses to attack her. Berkun botches his roll badly, and fails by 6; he'll suffer -3 to most of the rolls he makes, and -1 to defend against the eagle. The penalty lasts as long as the character is in the vicinity of whatever caused the Fright Check, and fades at the rate of 1 point of penalty per ten minutes after that. Alternately, the character can attempt to steady their nerves by taking a Concentrate maneuver and rerolling the original Fright Check: success reduces the penalty by 1, failure has no effect. Critical success reduces the penalty by 3; critical failure mentally stuns the character as though they had critically failed the original Fright Check. A good leader can rally her allies to help fight off the effects of fear. This requires a Concentrate action, a Leadership skill roll, and an appropriate (brief) speech. The skill roll is at a penalty equal to the highest fright penalty among allies the leader wishes to affect. Success on the roll reduces the fright penalty for all affected allies within earshot (including the leader) by 1; critical success reduces it by 3. Failure has no effect, and critical failure worsens the penalty by 1 for all allies within earshot. :Example 2: Continuing from the example above, Lenia tries to rally the delvers. Her Leadership skill is 20; she has no penalty for her own fear, and can soak up the -3 suffered by Berkun fairly easily. She rolls and succeeds. Connell and Mrugnak shake off their fear entirely; Mordreona is reduced to a -1 penalty (and no defense penalty); Berkun's fright penalty is reduced to -2, but he still has -1 to defend against the eagle. If Lenia's Leadership score were lower (say, 13), she might choose only to target Mrugnak and Connell, increasing her own chance of success for those two but leaving Mordreona and Berkun still badly shaken. Better Mobility Many maneuvers in GURPS require a full second to perform, or allow only a step. Attacks are the only actions that typically allow you to move as part of them, whether as a Heroic Charge, Committed Attack, Move and Attack, or All-Out Attack. These special attack options can be extended to other maneuvers. Ready :All-Out Ready: The character takes a Ready action as a free action and may still take his full maneuver. However, he loses all defenses until his next turn. This cannot be combined with an All Out Attack, Committed Attack, Defensive Attack, or All Out Defense. :Committed Ready: The character readies an object as a free action and may use it to attack; readying the object requires a DX+2 roll. He may move one step. Failure means that he still readies the object, but his turn ends and he suffers the defensive penalties for this maneuver. The character may not retreat or use the object to defend, and gets -2 to other defenses until his next turn. :Move and Ready: The character takes a Ready action as part of a Move. This requires an unmodified DX roll; failure means he fails to ready the object at all, but still suffers the defensive penalties for this maneuver. He may not use the object to defend, may not retreat, and suffers -2 to other defenses until his next turn. :Extra Effort - Fast Ready: The character spends 1 FP and rolls DX; on a success, he readies an object as a free action. On a failure, he readies the object as if with a standard Ready maneuver. There are no penalties to attack or defense. This is an 'offensive' Extra Effort option. Change Posture :These rules are considerably more generous than those found in Martial Arts, and replace the rules from that book. :All-Out Stand: Go from Prone to Standing with a roll against Acrobatics+4 or DX-2. Failure leaves the character Kneeling. Critical failure leaves him prone. Lose all defenses until next turn. (This is effectively +10 to an Acrobatic Stand check.) :Committed Stand: Roll against unmodified Acrobatics or DX-6 to go from Prone to Standing. Failure leaves the character Kneeling. Critical failure leaves the character prone. Regardless, the character may not Dodge or retreat and gets -2 to defenses until his next turn. (This is effectively +6 to an Acrobatic Stand check.) :Extra Effort - Quick Stand: The character spends 1 FP and gains +4 to an Acrobatic Stand check, defaulting to Acrobatics-2 or DX-8. This is an 'offensive' Extra Effort option. Concentrate :All-Out Concentrate: The character may move up to half his Move while concentrating, and gets +1 to rolls made for appropriate skills (spellcasting, psionics, etc), but lose all defenses until next turn. For spells with a casting time greater than one second, you must All-Out Concentrate for the entire casting time in order to get the +1 bonus. :Committed Concentrate: The character may move two steps while Concentrating, OR get +1 to rolls made for appropriate skills. All defenses are at -2, and the character may not retreat until next turn. For spells with a casting time greater than one second, you must use this maneuver for the entire casting time in order to get a skill bonus. :Move and Concentrate: The character may move up to his full move as part of a Concentrate action. Any rolls for skills (including spells) are at -4 and are capped at 11, similar to a Move and Attack. The character may not Dodge, and other defenses are at -2 until his next turn. For spells with a casting time greater than one second, the skill cap applies even if the roll occurs on a later turn! :Characters with Heroic Evoker reduce the skill penalty to -2 and are not affected by the skill cap. :Extra Effort: Mobile Concentration: As for Move and Concentrate, above, but the skill cap does not apply. The defense penalties still do! This is an 'offensive' Extra Effort option and costs 1 FP. See Also